Calling it a "sickness to this world," members of the formless 'hacktivist' group of computer programmers known as Anonymous declared war on religion on Friday, March 2, hacking the websites of three Christian organizations all based in and around Charlotte, North Carolina. The homepages for Bethel Outreach International Church, Charlotte International Church, and Crossfire Ministries were all replaced with the 30-minute long YouTube video, "Richard Dawkins: An Atheist's Call to Arms," and an informal declaration of war, with the title, "religion sucks lol ."

The attack was announced by Twitter account @AnonymousIRC to its 276,783 followers. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is one of the several online social platforms that Anonymous uses to congregate and make plans, along with Facebook and Twitter. The first tweet, sent out at around 10 am EST read, "http://www.betheloic.org HACKED Reason:religious idiocy and foh dah lulz #Anonymous #AntiSec #OWS #ROOTED #DAWKINS." WRITER'S TRANSLATION: "The website www.betheloic.org has been hacked. The reason being the idociy of religion and because attacking them makes us laugh." Two tweets followed moments later with the same message, except for the name of the website that Anonymous had hacked, most likely with a proxy DDoS spam attack.

The video that Anonymous posted on each hacked site is a 31-minute speech by famous atheist Richard Dawkins, in which he told his fellow atheists not to hide their beliefs, and to fight against "the incursion of religion into politics and education."

This Friday's attacks are a continuation of Anonymous hacktivist's plan to launch online attacks against their perceived enemies once a week. Last Friday, Anonymous hackers took down several FBI affiliated website, including the Dayton, Ohio branch of InfraGard.

2. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the non-stop barrage of religious propaganda

we're subjected to on a daily basis. Every time I drive down certain streets I see stupid signs on churches telling me I need to believe in the great sky man and his "son" who (was apparently obtained by deity-on-mortal rape) or I will perish. Some Bible thumpers came to our door yesterday (a young boy was in the group -- good strategy on their part, otherwise they would have heard an earful). I've never had an atheist knock on my door.

So, this is a little pushback. It's good for people to be exposed to other ways of thinking, right?

23. ah splendid

3. Finally! After thousands of red herrings you found a real attack on religion!

They should not be doing this. No excuses, no equivocation (boy it would be nice if attacks on nonbelievers got that reaction, but hey). Hacking into and defacing websites is always wrong, unless they are committing crimes themselves which is not the case here. I had no idea of this group's opinion on belief, and both had and have no interest or support in them expressing it this way.